Showing titles in Animals

When we see a bird flying from branch to branch happily chirping, it is easy to imagine they lead a simple life of freedom, flight, and feathers. What we don't see is the arduous, life-threatening challenges they face at every moment. Beaks, Bones and Bird Songs guides the listener through the myriad, and often almost miraculous, things that birds do every day to merely stay alive. Like the goldfinch, which manages extreme weather changes by doubling the density of its plumage in winter.

A lifetime of adventures with bats around the world reveals why these special and imperiled creatures should be protected rather than feared.

The enchanted island of Corfu was home to Gerald Durrell and his family for five years before the Second World War. For the passionate young zoologist, Corfu was a natural paradise, teeming with strange birds and beasts that he could collect watch and care for. But life was not without its problems - Gerald’s family often objected to his animal-collecting activities, especially when the beasts wound up in the family’s villa or even worse - the fridge.

A life-affirming nature diary - with something amazing to see and experience on every day of the year - from award-winning authors and Springwatch experts Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss. From blackbirds, beavers and beetles to tawny owls, natterjack toads and lemon slugs. Every day of the year, winter or summer, in every corner of the British Isles, there's plenty to see if you know where - and how - to look.

From that first foray to the spread of early hominids who later became Homo sapiens, life has persisted, undaunted. A (Very) Short History of Life is an enlightening story of survival, of persistence, illuminating the delicate balance within which life has always existed, and continues to exist today. It is our planet like you’ve never seen it before. Life teems through Henry Gee’s lyrical prose - colossal supercontinents drift, collide and coalesce, fashioning the face of the planet as we know it today.

Bears have always held a central place in our collective memory, from Indigenous folklore and Greek mythology to nineteenth-century fairytales and the modern toy shop. But as humans and bears come into ever-closer contact, our relationship nears a tipping point. Today, most of the eight remaining bear species are threatened with extinction. Some, such as the panda bear and the polar bear, are icons of the natural world; others, such as the spectacled bear and the sloth bear, are far less known.

Finally home from London after his wartime service in the RAF, James Herriot is settling back into life as a country vet. While the world has changed after the war, the blunt Yorkshire clients and menagerie of beasts with weird and wonderful ailments remain the same. But between his young son, Jimmy, trailing him around copying his every move, stubborn farmers refusing to try his ‘new-fangled’ treatments and a goat that has eaten 293 tomatoes, Darrowby is far from quiet. And with another baby on the way, life is about to get even more chaotic.

In the Hide is Gordon's emotionally honest and raw account of a brutal childhood in Glasgow and Mull, and the escape and solace he found – and continues to find – in the natural world around him. An intimate and inspiring account of resilience in the face of hardship, In the Hide marks the arrival of a bold new voice in nature writing.

Our countryside is iconic: a series of distinctive habitats that unite to create a landscape that is unique for the rich diversity of our flora and fauna. In England, his most magisterial book to date, John Lewis-Stempel explores each in turn, taking us from coast to moor, from downs to field, from the park to the village to create a vivid living portrait of our natural history.

In many ways, insects are just like us. Elaborate mating rituals, a variety of parenting styles, and a plethora of careers — from architects and engineers, to farmers and ranchers. Like us, they’re able to share complex information essential for survival, significantly impact their environment, and recycle. But insects outdo us in so many respects. They are terrestrial, but some can live underwater.

Otters hold an almost unique place in the animal kingdom of the British Isles, being one of the very few creatures that give birth once every two years. They are the most secretive yet also the most popular mammals - they are found in every county but are so rarely seen that they have been raised to mythical status. When Simon Cooper bought an abandoned water mill that straddles a small chalkstream in Southern England, little did he know that he would come to share the mill with a family of wild otters.

From best-selling author Amanda Owen come more tales of life at Ravenseat, the remote Yorkshire hill farm she shares with husband Clive, eight children and 1,000 sheep. In A Year in the Life of the Yorkshire Shepherdess she describes the age-old cycles of a farming year and the constant challenges the family faces, from being cut off in winter to tending their flock on some of Yorkshire's highest, bleakest moors - land so inaccessible that in places it can be reached only on foot.

Whales are among the largest, most intelligent, deepest diving species to have ever lived on our planet. We have hunted them for thousands of years and scratched their icons into our mythologies. They simultaneously fill us with waves of terror, awe and affection - yet we know hardly anything about them. Whales tend to enter our awareness only when they die, struck by a ship or stranded in the surf. They evolved from land-roaming, doglike creatures into animals that move like fish and breathe like us and can grow to 300,000 pounds, live 200 years and roam entire ocean basins. Yet despite centuries of observing whales, we know little about their evolutionary past.

Dieses Buch beleuchtet Irrglauben und Mythen über Pferde, ihr Verhalten und den Umgang mit ihnen neu und soll den Menschen zum genaueren Hinsehen, zum Reflektieren und zum Hinterfragen anregen.

What would it be like to visit the ancient landscapes of the past? To experience the Jurassic or Cambrian worlds, to wander among these other lands, as creatures extinct for millions of years roam? In this mesmerizing debut, award-winning palaeontologist Thomas Halliday gives us a breath-taking up-close encounter with worlds that are normally unimaginably distant.

In 1908, near Folsom, New Mexico, a cowboy discovered the remains of a herd of extinct giant bison. By examining flint points embedded in the bones, archeologists later determined that a band of humans had killed and butchered the animals 12,450 years ago. This discovery vastly expanded America's known human history but also revealed the long-standing danger Homo sapiens presented to the continent's evolutionary richness. Distinguished scholar Dan Flores's ambitious history chronicles the epoch in which humans and animals have coexisted in the "wild new world" of North America.

A book to be listened to for pleasure as well as a practical identification guide, The Edge of the Sea introduces a world of teeming life where the sea meets the land. A new generation of listeners is discovering why Rachel Carson's books have become cornerstones of the environmental and conservation movements.

In A Good Horse Is Never a Bad Color, Mark Rashid continues to share his talent for training horses through communication rather than force. Rashid uses humorous, feel-good stories to relate his techniques of teaching horses by examining their view of the world. This book is a must-have for compassionate horse trainers and owners. Tales of Arabs, appaloosas, and paints - mistrusted and mistreated because of their breed - will give listeners a new perspective on these breeds and others.

Offering innovative ideas for protecting coastlines and cleaning the toxic seas, Scales insists we need more ethical and sustainable fisheries and must prevent the other existential threat of deep-sea mining, which could significantly alter life on earth. Inspiring us all to maintain a sense of awe and wonder at the majesty beneath the waves, she urges us to fight for the better future that still exists for the Anthropocene ocean.

If the number one Sunday Times best seller Listening to the Animals was about Noel's path to becoming The Supervet, then How Animals Saved My Life is about what it's like to actually be The Supervet. Noel shares the moving and often funny stories of the animals he's treated and the unique 'animal people' he has met along the way. He reflects on the valuable lessons of integrity, care, love and hope that they have taught him - lessons that have sustained him through the unbelievable highs and crushing lows of a profession where lives are quite literally at stake.